A ninth trustee has yet to be appointed to the Presidential Search Committee, which currently consists of eight trustees and three faculty members, according to Chair of the Faculty Senate Prof. Sabine Von Mering (GRALL) at last Thursday's faculty meeting. Chair of the Board of Trustees Malcolm Sherman, who is in charge of appointing the committee, said the delay in appointment is due to personal issues faced by the trustee. He declined to comment further but added that he hopes to fill the seat this week.

The rest of the committee was appointed at the Oct. 29 Board meeting after University President Jehuda Reinharz announced his intention to resign in a Sept. 24 campuswide e-mail. Reinharz will remain president until a new president has been selected or until June 30, 2011, according to a Sept. 24 University press release. Reinharz's Oct. 30 e-mail to the Brandeis community announcing the appointment of the committee did not state that the committee was not complete.

An organizational phone meeting among appointed members of the committee was scheduled to take place yesterday, Chair of the Presidential Search Committee Meyer Koplow '72 wrote in an e-mail to the Justice. He declined to provide further details before the committee conferred.

Von Mering told the Justice that while she was happy with the selection of the three faculty members on the search committee, she would have liked to see the humanities and creative arts represented in the selection.

The faculty members of the committee are Profs. Gregory Petsko (BCHM), Leonard Saxe (Heller) and Gina Turrigiano (BIOL).

"The Board of Trustees is not getting the best bang for the buck by not having broad representation from all the schools," she said.

Eighty-two different faculty members have been nominated for the eight seats on the faculty advisory committee, which will provide the search committee with faculty feedback, Von Mering said.

Forty-three faculty members nominated the candidates, Von Mering said at the faculty meeting. The deadline to submit nominations was last Friday.

Von Mering told the Justice that the Senate will send out electronic ballots sometime this week in order to form the advisory committee as soon as possible.

"This committee of eight faculty members will advise the search committee about the goals of the search, will review and have input on the position description, and will also be involved in interviewing the finalists," Von Mering wrote in an Oct. 30 e-mail to faculty.

A Student Advisory Committee that will also assist in the presidential search met last Wednesday to discuss how to bring student feedback to the search committee, Student Advisory Committee Chair and Student Union President Andy Hogan '11 said.

In particular, topics addressed at the Student Advisory Committee's meeting included "the logistics of the town hall [meetings], the surveys and everything that we will be doing to get cohesive presentation to the search committee," Hogan said.



-Hannah Kirsch contributed reporting.